The Failure of Success

“Success can change movements. They become risk averse. They have attained a place in society, they have resources, their clergy are increasingly educated and respected. They have more to lose.”

“In a plateaued movement, the next generation of leaders would prefer to be on the staff of a large successful church, than take the risk of planting a new church. Larger churches would prefer to reproduce what they know works, rather than risk planting new churches.”

3 thoughts on “The Failure of Success”

Only very indirectly a reference to Ehud. Heard a talk by Steve Timmis on different kinds of leaders in church. The idea was based on some right hand left hand studies that seemed to indicate that since left handers (traditionally at least) were regarded as different because of their left-handedness, they often manifested similar characteristics as leaders being innovative, trend-setters, out of the box, pioneering leaders. While right-handers tended to be more conservative, keep the system running, happy with the status quo, stable, dependable types.

The idea being that most church leaders are “right handed leaders” or “left-handers” trying to be right handed. Steve suggested that we need to find ways to release and give permission to the “left-handers” while still allowing right-handers to do what they do best. Both are a gift to the church.

Apart from realising that I was one of those “left-handers” (despite being an actual right hander) trying to be a right hander, failing and frustrated. The idea behind the blog title was that there are probably a whole bunch of people like me out there – frustrated with not only right handed leaders but right handed church.